


Hazel

by literarynonsensefics



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Elriel, I have no shame, and cute animals, well its only a /touch/ of Elriel, yay?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:35:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literarynonsensefics/pseuds/literarynonsensefics
Summary: @paperbacktrash (on tumblr) made a post about Azriel rescuing an animal and I couldn't help myself.





	Hazel

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me on tumblr @literarynonsense!

He found the fawn when he was out scouting in the woods, doing a routine check for Rhys.  He had been flying, wings stretched out over an eternal sky, when the trees made way for a clearing and his eyes caught on something brown.  And red.  And small.

His shadows wanted him to continue on, but something deep in his gut refused to.  So he landed, dropped to the ground to investigate.  What he didn’t expect to find was a crippled deer, injured and staining the grass red.  It’s two back legs were crooked, and a cut ringed it’s neck.

He never did figure out how the animal got hurt, though he suspected something related to Illyrians, and killing for sport.  A hobby, he was told, that was troubling Elain more than she cared to admit.  Especially since she could see the death before it happened, but couldn’t do much to stop it.  

 _Soon_ , he promised himself, _I’ll put them in their place.  For her._

For now, saving the fawn would have to do.  Especially because his stomach soured every time he looked at it.  Or caught it’s eyes.

With the animal in his arms, Azriel flew back to Velaris and landed on the balcony of his home, an apartment in the heart of the city.  Chased by the sound of it’s bleating, Azriel ran to his bathroom and grabbed a towel.  He wrapped up the fawn, sure to be gentle around the legs, and ran back inside for bandages.  He knew nothing about healing animals, and didn’t dare bring the poor thing to Amren…  

But Juliet, Juliet could help.

“Sorry, little guy,” Azriel murmured, cradling the fawn in his arms.  “We’re going on another trip.”  The fawn caught his eyes and whimpered.

Juliet was an old friend, somebody he had met when Rhys became High Lord. She was almost seven hundred, now that he thought about it, and had been like a mother to him for the longest time.  Azriel just wished they weren’t reuniting under the current circumstances.

Juliet was home, luckily, and ran to him when she noticed the crying animal.  “Oh the poor thing,” she breathed.  “I’ll get him fixed up.”

The hour it took for her to fix the fawn up felt like a year, a century.  “Juliet, are you almost done?”

“Come inside, dearie.  You can see for yourself.”  Azriel walked into the room where Juliet was healing the fawn and gasped.  It was…walking?  “Don’t act so surprised, child.  I’m good at what I do.”

“Will he be alright?” Azriel asked.  The fawn cocked it’s head at him, and he couldn’t surpress a laugh.  

“She, actually.  And yes, with proper coddling of course.”  Juliet dumped a basket of creams and gauze into his arms.  “She needs lots of rest for the next few weeks, daily reapplying of this cream around her neck and on her legs when you take those casts off, and you should sneak these herbs into her food.”  Juliet tossed him a sack of something that smelled like moss.  “By the time she’s better, she’ll most likely be domesticated, so I’m not sure if you want to keep her…”

“Umm…”  Azriel looked at it, _her_.  “I don’t know…”

“Or, you could bring it to that girl, the High Lady’s sister.  Elain, I think her name is?  I hear she enjoys animals.”  Juliet smirked, like she knew something he didn’t.  “Anyway, out now.  I have friends coming over, and I think they’d faint if they saw  the High Lord and Lady’s Shadowsinger cooing over an injured deer.”

In the end, Azriel did end up taking the fawn to Elain.  She squealed when she first saw it, excited for a new pet, and fully committed to nursing it back to health.  She even sectioned an area off of her garden for it, and pestered Azriel into bringing her to the library, so they could research what to feed it along with the herbs Juliet had given him.  “Together,” she had insisted.  “We’ll do it together.”

When she named it Hazel (”Because she’s the same color of your eyes!”), he was done for.  And when Hazel took her first steps without bandages or a cast, they both shed a few tears.  Azriel wasn’t ashamed to admit that he felt like a proud parent.

The rest of the Inner Circle amused themselves by making fun of the two and their adopted child, Cassian especially.  But his boots were suspiciously filled with acorns every time he made a snide comment, and Hazel loved tearing the leather apart to find them.  “An injustice!” he cried.  But everyone kept laughing until it was him they were making fun of, not the fawn.  

Amren only threatened to eat her three times, so Azriel was convinced she didn’t hate Hazel.  

A decade later, when Hazel died in her sleep, the group wasted no expense in mourning her.  Rhys and Feyre declared it a court-wide holiday for the Night Court, and threw her a lavish funeral, inviting all of their allies from the other courts.  Each one decorated the creature’s grave with mementos of their court, until it was a shrine of unity and remembrance.  They wept for the animal they had never met.  Cassian even made a drunken speech, but Nesta pulled him off the dais before he could finish.

Centuries later, when the group was older and wiser, they would tell stories of Hazel, of her antics and pranks and Violence Against Cassian.  It was no surprise when Elain and Azriel had their first daughter, her middle name was Hazel.  

“It makes sense, really, that you got so attached to her,” Amren mused one day, sipping from a goblet.

“And why is that?” Azriel asked.  

“You lot already acted like dogs, so one of _them_ wouldn’t excite you.”  The girls choked on their wine.  “A deer was the only plausible option.”

“Besides,” Elain added wistfully.  “I had always wanted a pet.”

“So you adopted a deer that Azriel found in some clearing, and let it eat from your garden?”

“Naturally.”  Elain looked at them perplexed.  “What else are you supposed to do?”

“Not let it eat from your garden?”

“I thought it was quite _generous_ of Elain,” Cassian said.  Elain crossed her arms and nodded in his direction.

“Thank you, Cassian.”

“Besides, if the deer can eat her vegetables, that gives me free reign to-”

“Don’t.  You.  Dare.”  Elain stared him down.  Azriel didn’t try to choke down his amusement, and watched the rest of his family do the same.  One day, he’d get Elain another pet.  But for now, tormenting Cassian was much more fun.  


End file.
